Katie Bardaro, from Pay Scale Human Capital, once said “The real issue here is not the gender wage gap, but the jobs wage gap. People are filling positions according to gender, with higher-paid positions being filled by men and lower-paid positions being filled by women. That needs to change” In addition, men and women have differences on how they get paid. People think that men should get paid more because they think that they can do so much more, when women can do the same amount as a man can. Although we live in a society where men earn more money for the same job, this gender gap needs to stop, because equal pay can end poverty for single mothers, makes it harder to provide for family, and can overall will help society.
Shining some much-needed sunlight on the gender wage gap will make a difference for every one of us, men and women, right now.” (www.nytimes.com, 16). “It’s the twenty-first century, and the gender wage gap affects the daily life of women throughout the country, at every economic level, from cashier to CEO. Is it fair? No. Can it be stopped? Absolutely. In this intelligently argued and carefully researched book, Getting Even: Why Women Don 't Get Paid Like Men--And What to Do About It, Evelyn Murphy, Ph.D., examines how much women (and their families) lose over a lifetime to the wage gap, knocks down the myth that women ‘choose’ to make less, and documents the widespread discrimination that 's holding down women 's pay.” The book says that most people believe the pay gap is disappearing slowly, but this is not the case. It says that the pay gap should have ended a decade ago. But, for several years in the 1990s the pay gap widened (Murphy, 17). According to www.aauw.org in 2014, the payment of women to men was significantly smaller. It showed that women only got paid, on average, 79% of what men were paid, leaving a 21% gap (www.aauw.org, 3). This gap does
In today’s world, America has tried to compensate for past inequalities so that both genders can have equal opportunities in life. However, it is still not perfect. Meghan Casserly, a member of the Forbes Entrepreneurs team, analyzed the 2012 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau to discover that, “this year a total of 16 states boast women earning 80 cents or more to every male dollar, twice the count of 2010”. This shows how women are close to earning equivalent salaries to their male counterparts, but the gap is not quite closed yet. It is excellent that people are now paying attention to gender inequality and trying to do something about it. Since Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, it seems like the majority of the problem has been fixed. Catherine Hill, Ph.D., the vice president for research at the American Association of University Women wrote how the pay gap in the United States “affects women of all ages, races, and education levels”. Even if a woman has a Doctoral degree, lives in Washington D.C., and is Caucasian, the pay gap still exists. A man with that same backround would still be making more money yearly. However smaller the gender pay gap is becoming, it is obvious that it still exists, and it proves that discrimination also exists in America
Gender equality: the pinnacle concept that American society is not-so desperately trying to achieve. Many Americans have convinced themselves that gender equality was remedied by the Nineteenth Amendment and the Second Feminist Movement, and have not considered the thousands of steps that are left on the journey. In recent years, a matter of public interest has been the gender wage gap, stating that women are earning significantly less money than men for doing an equivalent amount of work. Critics of the effort to “break the glass ceiling” claim that a pay gap does not exist, and that if it does, it is because women either do not work as hard, have to tend to their families, or hold lower paying jobs. However, the gender pay gap has been proven to exist in a variety of different forms,
The year the Equal Pay Act was passed into law (1963) the wage gap between a man and women working full time was 41 cents with women making 59 cents for every dollar a man earned. Since then, the income disparity has decreased by almost 50 percent. In 2014, the wage gap was 21 cents with women making 79 cents for every dollar a man earned (The Wage Gap Over Time). This 20 cent decrease in the wage gap since 1963 shows how significant of a difference the Equal Pay Act and its enforcement through Corning Glass Works v Brennan, along with other court cases, have been. The current 21 cent wage gap today shows that the issue of unequal pay based on sex still exists, and that more needs to be done to close this gap. Multiple studies have been done to figure out the root of why the wage gap exists and what can be done to fix it. Many believe the Equal Pay Act is not strong enough and more action needs to be taken at the federal level to close the gap. Moreover, many states, such as California, have taken it upon themselves to enact laws that will attempt to close the wage gap between men and women once and for
For many years women have been seen as being “lesser” than men, and even in this great country, women didn 't have the right to vote until the passing of the 19th amendment in 1919. That amendment was passed almost 100 years ago, and surely we have changed for the better...Right? Many people would say that we have, however, it is clear that a woman working the same job as a man is making a significant amount less than the man would. This is a big problem in our country for a number of reasons. The most shocking fact about this pay gap is that there are so many single mothers out there who need to feed, care for, and comfort their children. By only allowing women 77-80 cents on the dollar compared to men, it makes it much harder for these single
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” set a strong foundation that began the movement towards equality for women. Since her declaration was first presented at the Seneca Falls Convention, there has been considerable improvement in women’s rights. Although most issues she originally brought up have been resolved, there are a few that still need improvement, including the wage gap between men and women, representation in the workforce, and self-image of women.
When the Equal Pay Act was signed, women were only making 59 cents for every dollar men were making (The Gender Pay Gap). Every year, especially around election time, new statistics are released asserting that despite considerable efforts to close the wage gap between women and men, it still exists. The latest reports state that women generally make 81 cents for every male’s dollar earned today, but the numbers that come out can sometimes be as low as 77 cents on the dollar (Taranto). Statistically, the general consensus is that the wage gap has gotten better, but it is still present. Though the wage gap has declined, the National Organization of Women reported that at the rate of decline that exists now, the wage gap would not close completely until 2058 in the United States (The Gender Pay Gap). Also, women who have children are much more likely to be paid less than men who have children. It is estimated that for every child a woman has, she receives a 5% wage decrease (The Gender Pay Gap). When looking at women in generally male dominated fields, wage gaps also exist. For example, female financial managers make about 70% of what their male counterparts make. And female lawyers only make about 80% of what their male counterparts make. These numbers are the results of several studies, which
In 2009 President Obama signed into law the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (The Whitehouse, n.d.). The major provisions of this Act prohibits wage discrimination based on sex, race, or national origin among employees for work in equivalent jobs. According to National Committee on Pay Equity (n.d.), the Act defines “equivalent jobs are those who’s composite of skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions are equivalent in value, even if the jobs are dissimilar.” Today women earn roughly seventy-nine cents for every dollar earned by men. Atchinson, Belcher, and Thornsen (2013) state that women have entered the workforce not only because of increased educational opportunities but also because of the need for two paychecks in many families
To obtain a better grasp of the severity of the gender wage gap, it is important to understand the data. Per the textbook, out of full-time, year-round workers in 2010, the gender wage gap was 77 percent. This number is found by dividing women’s annual income by men’s. Various other ways of measuring the gap exist, but they are
There are 3,418,059,380 women in the world (Geohive.com, 2015) and yet, women, in 2010, got paid a staggering 19% difference in wage on a universal standpoint (Economist, 2011). Such contributing factors as this (wage), has created an overwhelming notion of gender inequality leading to such things as segregation in the workforce across the globe.
Do you think it is fair for a person to get paid less than someone else simply because of their gender? It is unjust and unfortunately it happens right here in our country. In the United States, women are oppressed every day by receiving a lower wage than men. This is known as the wage gap. They have been mistreated this way for a long enough time already. This paper will explain that the gap should be closed because of the effects it has on women emotionally and financially and women with families. Also, it is time that women are treated equally to men in this country.
It is so clearly there, but is there truly a reason behind it? Throughout history women have been seen as second class citizens. The time has come and gone where a woman goes to school in order to prepare her for life ahead; in other words, she had to learn how to be a good wife. As men were sent off to war, women began to pick up the slack. After that, there was no stopping them from chasing what they wanted to become. Research shows wage gaps are solely a product of the choices of the second party. Woman have chosen what level of education they wish to pursue, the fields they wish to be in, and where they work. When looking back at a censuses of the early-to-mid 1900’s the majority of working women worked at small enterprises rather than booming companies: large Firms pay at higher rates, their payout going predominantly to males of the working class (Rubenstien, Michael Harvey). When taken under the scope, large enterprises rejected woman workers, and if they did hire, the lady’s income would be significantly smaller. Consequently, companies would deny the reason being that they were of a different sex, and rather blame it on how little education the skill the person had, “Frequently, even when given raises, their new pay still comes short of that of their male coworkers.”(Kasperkevic, Jana). How does one go about proving themselves not guilty in the court of law? Were companies deceiving the minds of authority in order to save their
It is said that because of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the gender wage gap no longer exists. Studies today show that the gender wage gap is still very much alive. In the 6th edition of Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings written by Susan M. Shaw and Janet Lee, Shaw and Lee explain, “the gender wage gap is an index of the status of women’s earnings relative to men’s and is expressed as a percentage and is calculated by diving the median annual earnings for women by the median annual earnings for men” (Shaw and Lee 497). Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics in 2010 showed the ratio of women’s to men’s annual earnings were 77%. This means for every dollar a man made, a woman made 77 cents. Shaw and Lee
The United States is currently facing an economical problem that involves males and female differences within the workplace. Males are given bigger and sometimes even better rewards for doing equal amounts of work as their female counterparts. Females are frequently not receiving the same wage even if they can complete the same job of a male. Also, females are less likely to get promoted within their job if they are competing against a male. A source states, “Women are now more likely to have college degrees than men, yet they still face a pay gap in every single education level,